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"It'll take mor'n a broken leg to git you out o' this labor battalion, Hoggenback. Won't it, guard?" said Happy, as he climbed on again. The truck jolted away, trailing a haze of cinder dust and a sour stench of garbage behind it. Andrews noticed all at once that they were going down the quais along the river. Notre Dame was rosy in the misty sunlight, the color of lilacs in full bloom.
I didn't care about the goddam war, but I wanted to see what things was like over here." "Well, you've seen," said Andrews, smiling. "In the neck," said Hoggenback, as he pushed out his cup for coffee. In the truck that was taking them to work, Andrews and the Kid sat side by side on the jouncing backboard and tried to talk above the rumble of the exhaust. "Like Paris?" asked the Kid.
"Ford nothin'! He sold an ammunition train. He was a railroad man. He was a mason, that's why he only got five years." "I guess five years in Leavenworth's enough for anybody," muttered Hoggenback, scowling. He was a square-shouldered dark man, who always hung his head when he worked. "We didn't meet up till we got to Paris; we was on a hell of a party together at the Olympia.
Andrews sat at the end of a bench, near the door through which came the glimmer of twilight, eating slowly, surprised at the relish with which he ate the greasy food, and at the exhausted contentment that had come over him almost in spite of himself. Hoggenback sat opposite him. "Funny," he said to Hoggenback, "it's not really as bad as I thought it would be."
"How's she comin', Skinny?" whispered Hoggenback, in his low mysterious voice. "Oh, we're all in the same boat," said Andrews with a laugh. "Wish it'd sink," muttered the other man. "D'ye know," he went on after a pause, "I kinder thought an edicated guy like you'd be able to keep out of a mess like this. I wasn't brought up without edication, but I guess I didn't have enough."
Hoggenback interrupted: "That you'll forgit all about the raw deal they gave you, an' tell everybody how fine ye liked it." Andrews felt the mocking notes of the bugle outside stabbing his ears. A non-com's voice roared: "Quiet," from the end of the building, and the lights went out. Already Andrews could hear the deep breathing of men asleep.
"I'd present 'em with a swift kick, and a hell of a lot of other people, too." "So we have to sweat unloadin' cement all day," muttered Hoggenback, "to give these goddam frawgs a stadium." "If it weren't that it'd be somethin' else." "But, ain't we got folks at home to work for?" cried Hoggenback. "Mightn't all this sweat be doin' some good for us? Building a stadium! My gawd!"
Hoggenback and Happy were talking beside his bunk. "Never you mind," said Hoggenback, "somebody'll get that guy sooner or later." "Git him, nauthin'! The fellers in that camp was so damn skeered they jumped if you snapped yer fingers at 'em. It's the discipline. I'm tellin' yer, it gits a feller in the end," said Happy.
A feller can't eat his bile day after day, day after day." "I'm afraid he can, Hoggenback," broke in Andrews. They walked towards the barracks. "Goddam it, no," cried Hoggenback aloud. "There comes a point where you can't eat yer bile any more, where it don't do no good to cuss. Then you runs amuck." Hanging his head he went slowly into the barracks.
The newspaper men were giving out cigarettes. Several men grouped round them. One shouted out: "We're the guys does the light work. Blackjack Pershing's own pet labor battalion." "They like us so well they just can't let us go." "Damn jackasses," muttered Hoggenback, as, with his eyes to the ground, he passed Andrews. "I could tell 'em some things'd make their goddam ears buzz." "Why don't you?"
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